William Graham Sumner Quotes

The clearest way to know whether you are with a poor person in America is not by the logo on the clothes, because we all wear pretty much the same anymore. It's by looking into their eyes and seeing whether they look into yours, and seeing what kind of teeth they have.

Poor people have more fun than rich people, they say; and I notice it's the rich people who keep saying it.

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

You can't define what's middle class, what is wealthy, what is poor.

If Eleanor Roosevelt has her way, how are we going to tell the rich from the poor?

I don't think that the rich should be attacked. There's nothing wrong in being rich.

Being poor is like being a child. Being rich is like being an adult: you get to do whatever you want. Everyone is nice when they have to be; rich people are nice when they feel like it.

Democrats' definition of 'rich' - always seems to be set just above whatever the salary happens to be for a member of Congress. Perhaps that says it all.

I felt like any other American kid. I already worked at a steady job as an ice cream scooper, but I didn't feel less in any way than my more affluent friends from school.

When the idle poor become the idle rich, you'll never know just who is who, or which is which.

In all the world, rich people are very unpopular.

Texas has arguably the most extreme separation between the well off and everyday people in the United States.

When I was a child, I didn't fly - we couldn't afford to fly. Flying was for rich people.

You can't tell a millionaire's son from a billionaire's.

I was poor. When you're poor you work, and when you're rich you expect somebody to hand it to you. So I think being reasonably poor is very good for people.

Contemplation is a luxury of the middle class, the very rich.

It isn't the rich people's fault that poor people are poor. Poor people who get an education and work hard in this country will stop being poor. That should be the goal for all poor people everywhere.

I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor.

I often think what it was like not to have much money. I don't think it's good for people to be born into money and not know what it is never to have it.

It seems to me that most people are interested in reading about characters who are richer than they are.

The poor generally follow behavior patterns established by the rich.

I'm tired of people on trust funds telling people on food stamps how to live.

If you are poor today, you will always be poor. Only the rich now acquire riches.

The poor should not have to learn how to be frugal and the rich should not have to learn to be extravagant.

Southampton is for sporting rich; Bridgehampton is for nearly rich; East Hampton is for the very rich.